Transforming growth ‘challenging’ for PNG

Papua New Guinea  faces the challenge of transforming its economic growth to the people, United Nation’s country representative Roy Trivedy says.
Trivedy said the Papua New Guinea had been experiencing strong economic growth over the past 14 years but still faced problems in investing that growth in human development, especially through education, healthcare and training.
He said the country had an incredible growth compared to other  places in the world.
He said to maintain this, basic services to the people must be improved.
“Compared to everywhere else in the world, the growth story in Papua New Guinea is incredible,” he said.
“Ultimately, growth is fine.
“But if you are not improving people’s lives, education, health care, housing, things that all normal people are concerned about, and providing jobs, then all that growth can mean very little.”
Trivedy said the country had the possibility of continuing its growth over the next few years.
“Fortunately in Papua New Guinea we actually have strong growth and we have the possibilities over the next few years of actually continuing the growth trajectory,” he said.
“And our challenge is to make sure that we really translate back into human development.
“That means investing in our people’s education, investing in their training, building the workforce for the future, making sure that law and order is dealt with in a way that investors who come to the country can feel assured that we have a really good legal system.”
Trivedy said it was a challenge that stakeholders should address without relying on the Government.